​ Video: “The Mountain Goats - Going to Georgia” from YouTube.. ​


​GOING TO GEORGIA
YETTA ROSE STEIN
—after The Mountain Goats

​​I am running out for butter and oranges.
I am running out because it is snowing.
I want to drive to the store before ice coats the driveway.
I want to see the powdered sugar trees.
I need to tell you something:
I have been awake for all these years.
I have found no better use of all this time than the hours
I have spent in love with you.

I am opening the screen door.
I am noticing the wind’s control over my baby hairs.
I am under the sky and
I am reminded of my impermanence.
The sky and the way it has always been here.
The sky and the way we won’t be here much longer.
​
I am running out of time.
I am running out the door.
I have a torn list in my pocket.
I have a purse full of loose dollars.
I have something else to tell you:
You are standing in the doorway.
You remarkable thing, standing in the doorway.
You are standing in the doorway and
You are using all of this time, all of
Your time: loving me.
​ Video: “Haley Heynderickx - "Oom Sha La La" (Official Music Video)” from YouTube.. ​


​AFTER NINE MONTHS OF WINTER
YETTA ROSE STEIN
—after Haley Heynderickx
​
​There is such a thing as too many greens.
I wander around the farmer’s market, buying
kale, spinach, butter lettuce, good dirt coating
each leaf. I predict my green thumb will fail me again
this summer. I speculate about my learned and reckless
tendency to abandon the green things around me.
I call myself busy but I really mean preoccupied.
I imagine a daughter who refuses to wear shoes.
I could plant sunflowers and track her height on the old,
broken fence post. I imagine growing her, watching her grow,
a hose and cold water and calling myself busy
but really meaning occupied with life and its
blossoming aftermath. The kale will wilt. Toes, stubbed.
Depending on your definition of failure, this child just might.
I call myself busy and I do mean busy: working on my
own roots, raking these leaves, cleaning out the fridge.
Preparing. I anticipate company. I anticipate joy.
I anticipate unfinished brussel sprouts. I need to start
a garden. I need to start a garden.
Yetta Rose Stein is a graduate of Hellgate High School. She reads and writes in Livingston, Montana. Her work has appeared in Grits Quarterly and Montana Woman Magazine and is forthcoming in Reject Lit. She shares first drafts at @yettaworldpeace on Instagram.